


Fear

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Series: Jennya's Scholarship App [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 14:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni
Summary: A spark, born from nothing but a whisper, a thought.





	Fear

**Author's Note:**

> I disappeared for like YEARS yall holy fuck  
> Did a lot of thinking about my writing career, focused a lot on schoolwork n shit (full IB life YEEHAW)  
> Wrote poetry for school  
> Using this one for a scholarship (see series notes for details) wish me luck :)  
> I'm also working on a long af Hamlet/Horatio high school AU that I'll update you guys on when I work out plot and stuff and write the first chapter

A spark, born from nothing but a whisper, a thought.

Do you see it? There, in the distance.

Just a little flash. You have to squint.

There, see it taken by the wind. See it flop through the breeze as if in a dance.

 

Sometimes, the wind is gentle,

blows it into a river and puts it to sleep,

leaving nothing but the faintest trail of wispy gray smoke in its wake.

Mostly forgotten. Perhaps not gone, but forgotten.

 

But sometimes, the wind blows it into a tree,

buries it deep within the dry wood.

Watch it now, growing into a fire.

Watch its smoke, not wispy gray but deafening black,

starting at that base and spreading through the air.

 

It blinds, that smoke. It consumes the vision,

consumes the smell, the taste, the touch.

It consumes and consumes and consumes until there is nothing left but it.

 

Some people choose to hide, or at least try to. Hide and cover their eyes and ears and nose

and wait for it to pass.                                                                                                              

But some people don’t wait.

 

There is only one option, if you don’t want to wait. Find the source

and exterminate it.

 

Grab a stick, then. A sword, a rapier, a gun. Whatever happens to be on hand.

 

_It’s not like other feelings._

_At once both older and younger.*_

Close your eyes and whisper something to yourself.

 

_It gives birth itself to the reasons_

_that give it life.*_

 

Your whisper mingles with the smoke, entangled in the sheets of irrationality.

 

_When it sleeps, it’s never eternal rest._

_And sleeplessness won’t sap its strength; it feeds it.*_

 

And in that whisper, feel another spark, only different this time.

 

_One religion or another –_

_whatever gets it ready, in position._

_One fatherland or another –_

_whatever helps it get a running start._

_Justice also works well at the outset_

_until hate gets its own momentum going.*_

And charge, blind and confused and dazed, knowing nothing but anger and fear and

 

_Hatred. Hatred._

_Its face twisted in a grimace_

_of erotic ecstasy…*_

_explosions and dead quiet,_

_red blood and white snow…the impeccable executioner_

_towering over its soiled victim.*_

But when you’re finished, the smoke doesn’t clear.

Do you know why? Of course you don’t.

 

The source of the fear was never anything concrete,

never anything that you could attack.

 

It was in you, the fear, wasn’t it? It was always you whom you had to face.

No one else but you.

 

Understand.

Leave the stick, the sword, the rapier, the gun in the corner where they belong.

Look inside yourself, wonder where, truly, the smoke came from.

And if you look long enough, you’ll find a bucket of water to pour on the spark that started the fire in the first place.

It doesn’t clear the smoke. It might help to keep the fire from spreading,

but it never quite clears the smoke.

 

As long as there are sparks, there is smoke. As long as there is the unknown, there is fear.

And as long as there is fear, there is a choice.

 

_* - excerpted from “Hatred” by Wislawa Szymborska, trans. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh_


End file.
